A blog about tabletop hobby and or strategy games, with a side order of electronic turn based goodness here and there. Now with tons of retro gaming content both electronic and tabletop. Also with 20% more self loathing douchebaggery!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports

This Tuesday we continued our Lord of the Rings miniatures battle that began last week. While I may do up a comic styled battle report sometime in the future, I will summarize the basics here: Starfury and I met on one flank, he with Faramir and forces from Minas Tirith, me playing Gothmog and Mordor Orcs. MagicDrew had Gimli, Merry, Pippin, and a mixed force of Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits. Facing him was 9IN with Lurtz and White Hand Uruk Hai. On the other flank was Missme with Boromir and more Minas Tirith troops against Pico with a mixed force of Moria Goblins and Haradrim. Pico pretty much smashed through Missme, Starfury stomped me, and 9IN got into a solid battle in the center, capturing the artifact, but just barely pushing Magicdrew out.

I think 4 of us enjoyed the game, but MagicDrew and Missme seemed less thrilled. Maybe the size of the game (400 points a player) was a bit too big for them. They tend to be strategy game novices as is. MagicDrew seemed to be overthinking most of his moves (something he does a LOT) and Missme just seemed irritated and frustrated with the game as a whole. This is rather disappointing to me given how much I like the game and how much I have spent on it recently, even if it was at 50% off. Their frustration has made me all but stop buying pieces for the game, though I really do want more, even if its just a couple of the "big" pieces.

Next time I try the game with them (provided they let me run it again), I will give them 200 point armies to battle with, and maybe even just make it 400 points per side and have players take certain units as opposed to a whole force.

The game was called for time, though the non frustrated folks had a good hour plus to kill. Since I had my Magic decks floating around and they are relatively balanced to each other (give and take), we played some Magic and had a pretty good time. No power decks, no sub 6 turn win decks, nothing that can go infinite. Since Pico's hours are changing this was his last day in the Tuesday group so it was good for him to leave on an up note with a game everybody playing was having fun.

Wednesday had myself demoing Warhammer 40K for Starfury at Sarge's. 1000 points of Chaos Space Marines per side. I got some mostly painted Iron Warriors for a buck a figure so I had extra troops letting me build some nice simple introductory forces without too much complexity to them. The fight went pretty well overall, with a bit of give and take, though Starfury took me out with 2 units surviving to the end. It would have been 3, but his commander unit, Typhus, managed to roll a 1 for his Daemon Weapon attacks 3 turns in a row, killing him. My Khorne lord was lost to a Demolisher cannon shot, and his Terminators deep striking behind my Havoc squad, wiping them out and making multiple 5+ invulnerable saves. We followed it up with some more Magic, with some of my decks getting some actual compliments from the players at how devious and amusing they are. It is also leading to Starfury getting a decent sized Necron army for a great price.

Next Tuesday is an up in the air game, and Wednesday or Thursday is some gaming with Pico, and possibly 9IN and Starfury depending on times and work availability.